My phobia list, although short, is pretty well-known in my circle. Bees, bears, and commitment. Yeah. The first two are self-explanatory (and TOTALLY understandable), but the last one is misinterpreted all the time. It's not about relationships. It's not fear of marriage or boyfriends or dating. It's about choosing a road and staying on it to the end when turning around isn't really an option. It's why I don't have a tattoo. I'd never be able to choose one and commit to it for life. Plus - ouch!
Sometimes, my heart moves too fast for my head to react and I - oh, I don't know - quit my job and move to another state. But usually, I tend to make decisions carefully. I made color boards and surveyed coworkers and friends before choosing the samples I would paint all over my house, months before I needed a decision. I wanted to make sure I saw them in all light. So, yeah - committing to a paint color for my living room took months.
But it means that when I choose, I've probably weighed it out. Thought it through. I'm sure.
Or I've just made a wild ass guess.
Which brings me to storybook endings. Because it's time for me to choose one. For my book.
I've had an inkling about how I wanted to wrap things up for awhile. By inkling, I mean I knew who I was going to make the villain (no spoilers!) but I hadn't really worked out the details. I haven't committed to an ending.
But it's time. I am working through my last chapters and I am forced to choose, to make resolutions, to tie up loose ends I threw in, sometimes by picking from my crazy idea board. (see previous related post) Committing to an ending seems like a big deal, not only because I really don't want to fuck this all up after all the work I've done, but because it's the ending. Not 'happily ever after' exactly, but I want it to satisfy. I want it to work.
Writers catch a lot of flak about revising things to death. We tend not to be satisfied with our own work, so we tweak it over and over and over. In a way, I'm blessed with some laziness, so the neverending loop of rewrites isn't really on my radar, because that would be exhausting. Of course, that means that I occasionally find errors way after I print or publish or submit, but so it goes.
But choosing an ending is big. And I'm too lazy to write five and see how I feel about them all over the next three months, so this one might come down to a wild ass guess. Wish me luck!
